Friday, 15 November 2013

The Google Books verdict came down yesterday. Google won.

Wow. The use of the full text of tens of millions of books for its online search function is a transformative use and thus Google's mass digitization of those books without authorization from copyright holders constitutes fair use, Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Nov. 14. The story is all over the news and the full 30-page decision is available in pdf format online. The current citation for the case is Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc., S.D.N.Y., No. 1:05-cv-08136-DC, 1:05-cv-08136, 05-cv-8136, 11/14/13.PW reports that "After years of fair use legal wrangling, the case wasn’t even close. Chin found Google easily prevailed on three of the four fair use factors, and lost slightly on one."
Libraries are pleased with the decision; the ALA said that "This ruling furthers the purpose of copyright by recognizing that Google’s Book search is a transformative fair use that advances research and learning.”